52nd Street station (SEPTA Regional Rail)

Not to be confused with 52nd Street station (Market–Frankford Line).

52nd Street is a closed train station that was located at the intersection of North 52nd Street & Merion Avenue (just north of Lancaster Avenue (US-30)) in the West Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) at the junction of its Main Line and its Schuylkill Branch. Today, these lines are the SEPTA Regional Rail Paoli/Thorndale Line and Cynwyd Line, respectively.

52nd Street
Westbound train at 52nd Street station in 1973
General information
Location	North 52nd Street & Merion Avenue Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Coordinates	39.9779°N 75.2263°W / 39.9779; -75.2263
Owned by	Pennsylvania Railroad
Line(s)	Pennsylvania Main Line Paoli Line Schuylkill Branch
Construction
Structure type	Elevated
Platform levels	2
History
Opened	1902
Closed	August 23, 1980
Electrified	1930
Former services
Preceding station Amtrak Following station Overbrook toward Harrisburg Silverliner Service One westbound trip only Philadelphia–30th Street toward Philadelphia–Suburban Preceding station SEPTA Following station Overbrook toward Downingtown Paoli/​Thorndale Line 30th Street Station toward Suburban Station Wynnefield Avenue toward Ivy Ridge Ivy Ridge Line Preceding station Pennsylvania Railroad Following station Cynwyd toward Pottsville Schuylkill Branch Philadelphia toward Suburban Station Wynnefield Avenue toward Norristown–Haws Avenue Norristown Line Overbrook toward Paoli Paoli Line 40th Street toward Suburban Station
Location

History

The abandoned 52nd Street station in 1999

At 52nd Street, the Main Line is on an embankment at-grade, while the Schuylkill Branch is on an elevated structure including a Parker through truss spanning 388 feet (118 m) over the Main Line on an extreme skew. A lit sign informed inbound passengers which platform the next train to Center City, Philadelphia would depart from. Only a few trains in each direction stopped at this station, mostly serving reverse commuters heading out to jobs in the Main Line suburbs in the morning and returning home to the city in the evening.

Through merger and bankruptcy, the station and the trains serving it passed from the PRR to the Penn Central to Conrail (the later under contract to SEPTA). The first westbound morning trip of Amtrak's Silverliner Service also stopped at the station.

The station was burned by vandals on August 16, 1980. Conrail bused passengers until the 23rd, when SEPTA chose to outright close the station. The station came down in 1995 as part of revitalization efforts.

Proposals have been made to reopen the station, either in conjunction with projects such as the Schuylkill Valley Metro, or as part of community revitalization efforts.

External links

• Abandoned 52nd Street PRR Station (WorldNYCSubway.org)
• Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) No. PA-546, "Pennsylvania Railroad, 52nd Street Bridge, North Fifty-second Street at Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA", 16 photos, 4 data pages, 2 photo caption pages